The niche and paratextual industries of games and play

Bad Game, Bad Art

Are bad video games simply the same as bad art, or are they judged by a different criteria? This has been the question that has been stuck in my head for the last few weeks. Video games, like art, have form and technique, convey complex ideas and have uses. But judging from the way we review art and the way we review video games, it seems there is a difference.

Art can be fun, but one perception of video games is that they have to be fun to be good. Personally, I believe that people don’t play games because they are “fun”, but rather that what we get out of them can broadly be described as fun. I may play a particularly scary game to be scared, but I may not find it fun to play. But by playing it I got a unique experience that I couldn’t have gotten…